The Bitcoin Journey: Parallels with the Game of Golf

The principles of golf can offer valuable insights into bitcoin, and understanding bitcoin can shed light on the intricacies of golf.

Like golf, bitcoin is a game that can only be mastered through proof of work. Once you've established a low time preference and put in a massive amount of work, there's one more key concept to drive consistently lower golf scores: minimize mistakes!

“Golf is a game of minimizing mistakes.” - Ben Hogan

Launch your drive somewhere in the fairway, hit your approach shot somewhere on the green, and get the ball in the hole in two putts...a successful par. Like shooting par on 18 holes, holding bitcoin is simple in concept but not easy in practice. Both require avoiding errors rather than achieving perfection. The key to success in bitcoin and golf is simple: minimize mistakes.

Most golf fairways have a width between 25-65 yards. This means you do not have to hit a perfect shot to hit the fairway. In fact, you have a fairly wide range of shots that you can hit, and it would still put you in a sufficient spot to hit the green on the next shot. The same applies to a green. While it varies by course, the typical width of a putting green is around 25 yards. Again, this means you do not have to hit a perfect approach shot to hit the green. A wide range of shots will do. For both driving and approach shots, you do not need to hit the perfect shot. You simply need to not hit a bad shot.

Various elements can induce mistakes or mishaps on the golf course, such as wind, water, sand, rough, trees, and all sorts of other hazards. Success in any round of golf depends on a thoughtful approach. Course management and keeping your misses small, so that you can easily recover from them, are critical to achieving a low score. Perfection is not required, but fault tolerance is.

The same is true in your bitcoin journey. Hazards appear in the form of market volatility, adoption waves, and phishing attacks. Bitcoin “yield” products will tempt you to “overswing your driver” for a little bit of extra distance, and the trading gurus make going for the well-protected flag seem easy.

But your only job when it comes to holding bitcoin is to prevent yourself from making mistakes that cause you to lose it.

The foundation of your bitcoin course management is holding your own private keys in a fault-tolerant way and putting a succession plan in place. Avoid trying to time the market, trade bitcoin’s volatility, or search for a few extra points of yield. These are all near-certain ways to shank the proverbial BTC ball into the woods. You simply need to hold your bitcoin securely and keep your private keys private.